Conte had just drained his savings and maxed two credit cards building an elaborate music video ("Pedals") and knew from experience that a viral video like it would earn him almost nothing on YouTube. He sketched a one-line idea in his personal notebook, a pay-per-video pledge from fans, and called engineer friend Sam Yam that same period to build it.

“Jack is making videos. Give Jack one dollar per video.”

Conte tried to recruit 40 other creators to join before launch and all declined. On launch day the only creators on the platform were Conte himself, his girlfriend (now wife) Nataly Dawn, and his roommate.

Conte asked his existing YouTube fanbase directly, in a segment at the end of the Pedals video, to become his patron. Pledges reached about $5,000 per video within roughly two weeks.

“Within about two weeks, my patrons had pledged 5000 bucks per video to me.”